


Victory has a price

by SakuPenguin



Category: Inazuma Eleven
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, I´m trying ok, M/M, OC, don´t blame me ok..., fudou is even more a dick, ina11writtingexange, nb Sakuma, semi happy ending???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:13:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23558920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SakuPenguin/pseuds/SakuPenguin
Summary: 4-0Raimon had lost by far, their good intentions only allowing them to shoot once. Genda stopped it without a hitch. And all his attempts to stop Sakuma were in vain, Fudou kept pushing and insisting, always returning the ball to the feet of the striker who, with his body shattered and out of pure rage, had used that technique four times in a row, nerves burning and heart almost stopping. Now everyone was waiting to see their friend open his eyes again.
Relationships: Genda Koujirou/Sakuma Jirou
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	Victory has a price

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UndeadFae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UndeadFae/gifts).



> Okay this is part of Inazuma Writing Exchange... hope u like it!!

Mornings had stopped being noisy since the disappearances began. Since Sakuma and Genda had gone out to investigate, and then stopped contacting them. Henmi and Sakiyama sat almost glued to each other, muttering to themselves as they searched for information on where their friends might be. Oono kept pounding the floor with a rhythmic, nervous foot. Narukami changed the song on his mobile again without ever letting it end, the lyrics reminding him of his friends each time. The door opened suddenly, Doumen and Jimon entering together, walking quickly to the area at the end of the class occupied by their classmates.

"Ehime," said the first in a whisper, "the last disappearance was near Ehime harbor."

"They have to be there..." Jimon was shaking from head to toe, dark circles under his eyes, like the rest of them,he hadn't slept too well those last few days. 

They looked at each other silently. Teikoku wasn´t the same since his friends had left, still too wounded after the game against Zeus, to investigate what was happening. Genda had been the first to offer to go, always with the duty to protect others before his own safety. Sakuma had followed him, as always, those two would not be separated, they would go shoulder to shoulder until the end of the world if necessary. They were worried, about their friends, about the children who were disappearing, about the rumors that Kageyama had escaped... Though they were sure the latter was true, judging by the police car that now patrolled the area around Teikoku throughout the day. The teacher entered the classroom, tense and silent, also aware of what was going on in the classrooms and hallways of the academy during those days.

What they did not know, neither the professor, nor they, nor anyone else, was that there was already someone on the way to Ehime. Nor did they know that, in their attempt to save someone, there would be terrible consequences. Victories always came at a price, something very dangerous had disappeared from the Teikoku archives and it wasn ́t a good sign under any circumstances. But once again, they didn't talk about it, they didn't want to worry anymore, they didn't want to have that fear. Although...they should have feared the worst. They couldn ́t do anything more, however, than sit back, continue their routines, and pray that Genda and Sakuma would be safe, and that nothing would confirm their suspicions. So that they wouldn't be like they were after the Zeus game again.

They didn't understand why they were still going to morning practice, day in and day out. Maybe they just needed to stop thinking about Kageyama for a while by hitting the ball. The coach had refused to show up at the school until Kageyama was back in jail, so it was just them kicking a meaningless ball. But that morning, something different happened. They had to move off the field when the old Teikoku bus pulled onto it, imposing and noisy as ever. They stared at that metal monster from the ground, scared. A familiar feeling returning to their bodies as the door opened and Kageyama was the first silhouette they saw.

He stepped out of the bus, hands in his pockets, taking long, steady steps as always, glancing sardonically from behind those dark sunglasses to his old stall by the bench.

Several boys followed him, in football uniforms like their own, but darker. Right behind Kageyama was a boy with an unsettling manic smile, behind him Genda walked shuffling, staring at the floor.Beated and looking like a mess. The march was closed by two boys dragging a seemingly unconscious Sakuma, letting them go with a thud, their body hitting the ground hard and staying there, not moving, and for a moment everyone feared the worst, looking at each other pale and trembling.

Narukami ran beside his friend, placing the other´s head in his lap, Sakuma was cold, their eyes closed and their breathing so weak that panic began to take hold of the smaller boy.

Banjou and Jimon helped Genda to sit down, a groan escaping from his lips when they grabbed his arms, between the wounds and the orange makeup they didn ́t see the tears at first. They had never seen Genda like this, defeated and wounded, even worse than after the victory of Zeus. He looked at them with incredible pain, his voice cracking.

"Jirou," his voice trembled, "help Jirou please... I'm fine, help them... "

He rested his head on Jimon's shoulder, exhausted, still crying in silence. Everyone looked at Kageyama expectantly, his team like soldiers, steady and serious behind him, not a hint of emotion on their faces. The boy wearing the captain's band approached Narukami, striking Sakuma carelessly in the way. Oono had to restrain Henmi and Sakiyama, preventing them from attacking the guy. 

"You should take them to a hospital, no matter how incompetent they´re, there'll be a lot of paperwork if they die."

Everyone recognized the smile on the boy's lips, manic and superior, they had worn it when they still believed in Kageyama. The man looked at them and nodded silently, the captain stepped over Sakuma's body again, everyone saw how his foot crushed their friend's hand with a nasty sound, but Sakuma didn ́t move, not even a groan escaping from their lips. They seemed almost dead.

Oono approached them, lifting Sakuma in his arms as carefully as he could, not a response, not a whimper. Jimon helped Genda to his feet, letting him lean on him. No one in the infirmary was surprised by the visit, they just had to leave the kids on the stretchers and a marabout of doctors they had never seen before threw them out of the room to attend to their friends. 

_Everything changed from that day on._

Kageyama's new team took the starting spot, they were left behind, sitting on the bench until they got stronger. There were many strange people in the halls of the school, men in long black coats and sunglasses, boys in strange uniforms and full of wounds. It wasn ́t their Teikoku. Now it was just another barracks for Alius. They were just another team on their side and as such, training began. They were the weak team, simply a punching bag for Fudou Akio's team to entertain and keep fit. The old meeting room was now the chamber of that strange stone, in which they were forced to spend hours, an attempt to make them stronger. Some changed, but most just remained frightened children in hopes of seeing their friends safe and healthy again

Genda had woken up two days after his surgery, able to move his fingers, relatively healthy and with the stone back in his neck not even nightmares or pain bothered the King of keepers.

Sakuma, on the other hand, still asleep, not opening their eyes. There were more pain relievers in their body than blood by that moment. Occasionally one of the machines they was connected to made horrible noises and the forward had to return to the operating room. Nobody was surprised, they had seen the recordings, they had seen the notebooks of the forbidden techniques disappear... It was a miracle that Sakuma was alive.

4-0

Raimon had lost by far, their good intentions only allowing them to shoot once. Genda stopped it without a hitch. And all his attempts to stop Sakuma were in vain, Fudou kept pushing and insisting, always returning the ball to the feet of the striker who, with their body shattered and out of pure rage, had used that technique four times in a row, nerves burning and heart almost stopping. Now everyone was waiting to see their friend open their eyes again.

They spent hours by Sakuma´s bed, talking to them and carrying flowers and stuffed animals, praying for them to recover. Genda was always there, silent and impassive as a rock, his hand full of scars over Sakuma's. He never said anything, he just sat there until his next rehabilitation session arrived. Genda attended the therapy and rehabilitation sessions, getting better and fighting to come back stronger, all in order to return to Shin Teikoku's goal. No one trusted what that stone around his neck was doing to him, he was acting more and more elusive and aggressive, almost like an animal. He was not in control of his new strength and was pushing his body to the limit, they were all afraid for their friend. But at least he was awake, Sakuma was what worried them most now.

"Any change?" Narukami came into the room, exhausted after an horrible training, blood stains in his uniform from a ball hitting his nose

"Nothing,they´re still asleep, Genda left a while ago," Henmi was sitting by Sakuma's bed, trying to take part of that situation with humor while he painted their friend's nails.

"He was even more tired than usual, he's not pre--" a grunt interrupted Jimon, everyone turned to the bed, Sakuma had opened their eyes, though they did not really seem to be seeing anything, their eyes were moving slowly and their gaze was blurred. The doctors were called, but by the time they arrived Sakuma had fallen asleep again, exhausted after the effort that had been made to open their eyes. That happened more times. Sakuma started waking up for some seconds, then minutes, and two months after the match, they finally woke up.

After that, everything became blurry. They remembered struggling to move and exhausted after hours of trying to open their eyes without success. Sakuma remembered their mother's voice, strong and confident, saying that they would come out of it, their father comforting Genda. Hands pulling hair away from their face and the sound of a ukulele, it was like fragments of a strange dream. But when they woke up completely, the doctors later told them that they had woken up before but never for more than a few minutes, the dream became real. They still could not move, it still hurt even to breathe. They knew that their family and friends had cried when they saw them awake. Sakuma remembered asking about Daiki (one of their older siblings), he was the only one who wasn’t in Tokyo when it all happened, having moved to Hokkaido a few months earlier to go to university. Sakuma had never heard their brother speak, or at least not in full. Daiki was deaf. Everyone could recognize his high-pitched laughter and his grunts of frustration that were always louder than he was likely to pretend. One of the first things they had learned as a child had been how to talk to their brother. Sakuma remembered their father's patient classes, the teacher's less patient ones. Sakumas´father helped them to place their hands properly, told them how the sign language Daiki needed was not only that, but also emotion and body language, and he couldn ́t be prouder to see the four children struggling to talk to their new brother, for no one could beat the Sakuma family at being stubborn like hell. But Daiki loved his family, he talked about it with his hands shaking and smiling, his big and disastrous family. As soon as he heard that his little sibbling had woken up he didn't hesitate to skip a few classes to see them.

Genda had spent some time there, a quick visit before going to his own therapy session. One of many he had to go to despite having already left the hospital. His friends were still in class, always visiting in the afternoons when practice was over. Shortly after Genda left, the door opened wide, and Daiki was there. With dark circles under his grey eyes, his travel bag still in his hand and his hair a real mess. He don't remember ever seeing him so pale, Sakuma still weak, fingers barely moving an inch above the mattress to greet him, Sakuma smiled wearily and before they knew it Daiki was hugging them carefully, afraid to break them further. He placed his hands on Sakuma´s cheeks and stroked their face, crying and laughing at the same time, Sakuma's head was still cloudy but then they realized. Daiki kept repeating their name. Jirou. It was all he said, over and over again, as if it were the most beautiful sound in the world even though he could not hear it himself. Sakuma tried to move their hand again, catching the fabric of their brother's shirt between their fingers, weakly, an imperceptible tug. Daiki stood there, hands on their face and smiling, Sakuma leaning against his touch, warm and comforting as always, it was the first time in a long time that they had actually smiled. They had never imagined that hearing their name could make them so happy, and they could not thank them enough for being awake. Daiki's voice was the most beautiful thing they had ever heard.

If they had ever doubted their name, years ago when their mother had offered to change it just as she had suggested them to cut their hair, when she had told everyone they was not a girl, they had wanted to leave Jirou behind. But in the end they didn ́t, and in that moment they knew that they would never do it again. The Sakuma family continued to visit the infirmary wing of Teikoku every day after that, Genda also continued to sit in his chair by his friend's bed, always with his hand linked to Sakuma's. But, even after that, for the former Teikoku team the world was collapsing, training was getting harder, more demanding. Kageyama treated them worse and worse, forcing them to spend more hours in the Alius stone chamber and its light began to drive them mad. They were more violent, stronger, and less patient.

Narukami had suffered a panic attack after Henmi and Sakiyama, always calm, threw at each other’s throats over a small argument. Their friends still wounded, their team falling apart, that strange academy defeating the almighty Raimon. Nothing was getting better and it seemed it could only get worse. It had been three months since Kageyama's return, three horrible months of pain and fear. At least when that stone didn’t cause them to lose control, they were still a family. They met on Fridays to spend the night together, nightmares invading them if they were left alone at night.

Jimon always brought sweets from his family's bakery, Doumen his collection of board games in which Gojou tried to cheat, although Banjou caught him every time and Oono ended up winning the game. Narukami played the music and on a normal night Genda would be ordering pizzas while Kidou and Sakuma competed to the death in the Just Dance. But even though they could be a family again on those nights, things were different. Sakuma was still in the hospital, getting better and recovering, spinning around like a caged animal in a wheelchair. And Genda, on doctor’s orders, wasn ́t allowed to stay with his friend, or partner, because all of them were sure that two were together, so he just sat with them in silence. They tried to cheer him up by playing his favourite films but nothing worked, he just kept them company until exhaustion overtook him and he fell asleep on the sofa. One of them always covering him with a blanket and letting him rest.

That became the routine of every Friday, after exhausting weeks in which they were not allowed to leave the academy, the weekends were only theirs. Although they had less and less energy to try and hide their worry and bad mood. Gran and Fudou had become the most powerful captains of the Alius academy, the rest of the aliens had been expelled and were now wandering around the city with no memory. As shattered as their body was, Sakuma was the first to say that they had to go out and find these people, they could not let something like this happen, that is what the Raimon would do. The Raimon. Endou, Kidou and the others had also disappeared after the defeat against Genesis, but at least they were sure that they were safe, that their coach had hidden them in a safe place to recover to attack again.

The first Friday that Sakuma was able to leave the hospital, still confined to their wheelchair, their presence was very different. They had lost a great deal of weight, had dark circles under their eyes, and still could not move their legs, but they entered their home with fire in theitr eyes as he shouted for them to gather in the room. Genda stood by tehir side, a loyal aril next to his king. Sakuma, unlike them, did not carry the stone. The doctors had forbidden them, ``if you want your most powerful weapon back, take the stone away from that boy for now,'' and even Kageyama knew to draw some boundaries. Sakuma was the only member of Teikoku with their head free of that mist, and so despite the pain, despite knowing that joining Shin Teikoku had been the biggest mistake of their lives, they knew that it was now in thier hands to clean up the mess.

“Raimon is no longer here, we know they are safe thanks to Kidou's messages, but they cannot help. I know you're scared and tired, I know what that rock and Kageyama are doing to your head, but guys. We're fucking Teikoku. We're strong, we're a family and Kidou is still part of it. They're not here to save us, so it's our turn,'' Sakuma's voice echoed in the room. ''Let's go out there and find the people the Alius is throwing out. They're just kids, they don't deserve what they're doing to them, let's find them and create our own team. We're going to defeat Kageyama and Kira with the power they've wasted.”

"Kageyama will stop us before we try Sakuma... we can't do that," Narukami shrugged in his seat, scared and trying to disappear.

"We are not like you, we are not strong, this thing is burning us. It's leaving us without energy." Henmi's hand closed around the stone, its purple light filled the room.

"Sakuma... we can't do anything, we have to accept that this time they've won. We can't fight something like this, we're just scared teenagers," Jimon played nervously with his sweatshirt laces.

"That's enough!", Sakuma hit the table hard, the echo echoing in the room, "I know how you guys feel, but we can't let this happen. We are Teikoku, Kageyama has always tried to ruin our lives and now that we had lost sight of him he is back, I will not let him take this away from me. I won't lose you, even if I have to go out there just to do something. I'm not going to stand around and try.”

They looked at them still uncertainly, thinking of his words, Oono squeezed Narukami's hand with protective affection. Henmi and Sakiyama held on to one another carefully, Jimon, Banjou, and Doumen looked at one another with a smile. They had missed that Sakuma, that strength and explosive nature, and they had been so afraid they would never see them again.

"What will happen if we remove the stone?" Gojou's voice sounded worried, "What will happen to our bodies?"

Sakuma smiled confidently, turning their chair to Genda who was still not moving. Sakuma's hand grabbed his wrist to bring him closer. The keeper did so without protest, the feel of Sakuma's skin against his, a warm familiar one. He pulled his arm until Genda knelt down to their height and pulled his hair out of his face.

"Koujirou... I know I've already tried and you didn't want to, I know you're scared and you just want the strength to protect us." Everyone was silent, watching as Sakuma stroked Genda's cheek with incredible delicacy, as they spoke to him in the sweetest voice they had ever heard them use. "But this isn't you, darling... I want my Koujirou back. I need you back, please. We all need you, but not this version."

Sakuma released Genda's wrist, placing one hand on his heart as they reached for the chain on the necklace. Genda's hand moved quickly to grab their arm, preventing Sakuma from getting any closer to the stone, his hand closing tightly around Sakuma, too tightly. There was no way that it was not hurting, but Sakuma only smiled.

"Love... please, I need you to be you again. You don´t need that stone, you don´t need that power, you are strong, you are brave love, more than anyone I know," Sakuma's hand rested on Genda's heart, "so let me do this, let me bring you back, so that we can all see that we can fight without the power of Kageyama. Genda Koujirou, I love you... but I need my fucking boyfriend to stop looking like a puppet. I need your voice... I need your laugh... We need your advice and your strength, honey, so let go and let me do this.”

Genda's eyes seemed to clear for a second, his arm drooping as he let go of Sakuma, who removed the collar from the other boy's neck slowly and shakily. At the very moment the stone stopped resting on his heart Genda took a breath, as if he had been drowning all that time, his eyes filled with tears as he tried to breathe again. He looked around as if he had just discovered where he was and then his eyes focused on Sakuma, a smile occupying his lips.

"Jirou? Jirou what... what happened...", he seemed confused and lost, but before he could answer Sakuma threw himself into a tight embrace, falling off the chair as they laughed. They buried his head in Genda's neck after leaving a soft kiss on his shoulder. Genda wrapped his arms around them gently, something telling him that it was not a good idea to hold a Sakuma who seemed smaller than normal in a tight grip. As Sakuma parted, holding his face to kiss him between laughs and tears, Genda had no time to react, his head thinking only of how he had missed that, the feel of Sakuma's lips on his, he looked at the other boy as if he were seeing them for the first time in years, tracing the shape of their lips with his thumb, smiling like the lovesick idiot he was.

"Find a hotel, lovebirds... we were here planning how to defeat Kageyama not so you could eat each other mouths," Henmi looked at them with a smug smile, the necklace hanging in his hand.

"Don't be like that... let them kiss, don't let it bother you," Narukami looked happier than he had in a long time as he removed the stone from his neck.

Slowly they all did the same, the color returning to their faces and the mist dissipating from their heads as the stones moved away from them. They made room on the couch for Genda to sit with Sakuma on his lap, and it seemed that Fridays were back to the way they had been, the plans to defeat Kageyama forgotten for a moment as they laughed and talked. Banjou and Doumen invaded the Sakuma family kitchen to return with refreshments for all. Narukami playing music and Oono pulling out the old deck of cards. Tomorrow they would make war plans, today they were a family again.

**Author's Note:**

> prompt used:
> 
> shin teikoku wins against raimon and gets away AU maybe they even sorta become an aliea team since the aliea was helping Kageyama. a bittersweet sorta uplifting still sorta sad ending maybe? please include the teikoku team cuz they are good kids and care for their friends. taking from the game beginning of the shin teikoku part instead of anime would be appreciated but not required if it doesn't fit.


End file.
